Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never seated. We pay our respects to their elders past and present.
Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land. This episode was recorded on Drug Wallamuta Land. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and it is Thursday, and on Thursdays we wear green. Britt and I, from across the other sides of the world have managed to rock up today wearing almost the exact same thing.
And you know what's ridiculous is you and I don't wear a lot of color in the day to day, Like we're pretty plain. You probably wear slightly more than me. I did try and have my year of color last year, but I ended up going back to beij But this happens so often when we decide to actually wear a color, we turn up in the same thing.
This probably sounds like if it's very uninteresting and wear across that we're wearing bright green, the exact same color bright green. This also reminds me of that it was a a Channel nine reporter. I can't remember her name. He was like, you can't wear the white jacket.
So we're having shirtgate.
Yeah, it's shirtgate anyway.
Look, this is our ask uncut episode where we answer you're deep, you're dark, and you're burning dirty, sometimes dirty, sometimes not questions. But today's episode almost didn't happen because I almost died on the way to work today. What I know, I like to make that sound dramatic, but it actually was kind of dramatic.
So I was running and literally we nearly lost you, and Cash nearly had to step in.
When we talked about this on Tuesday's episode, you could have done the recording from my funeral once again.
Oh my god, good for the downloads.
What happened?
So I had to drop the kids off to daycare this morning. Usually Matt on a Monday and Wednesday, which our recording days, Matt kind of does the heavy lifting. But he was out the door first thing this morning to go to the airports. He was flying to Melbourne. So I'm running around. This is why I look the way I look because of everything they had to do this morning. So I get the kids ready, I threw them in the car, get them to daycare, and I'm walking out of daycare.
I've got a coffee in one hand.
I've got my phone in one hand, and right in front of the daycare is like a pedestrian crossing. I wasn't paying any attention. I had my face in my phone, which is stupid, but also.
It's so unlike you, Laura.
In my defense, it's a pedestrian crossing. You just expect people are gonna stop. So I'm walking along and then I could just oud in my periphery. I was like, that car feels like it's going dangerously fast for a car that should be stopping. And I look up, wait for it. The car fangs it through the pedestrian crossing. It is an old lady in her nineties driving a Mercedes with the windows down.
She had she probably having a flag out the window.
She's having a great old time.
She's got like what's that John Laws on the radio. I was like, this is one of two things.
Either she's senile and she didn't actually see me and she can't drive and probably should lose her license. Or two, she's so old she doesn't give a single fuck anymore and she's like, I don't have time.
To stop at pedestrian crossings. Take you down, bitch. It was one of the to be.
She probably hasn't gone for her itest for driving for like twenty five years.
She probably can't see. She probably got tunnel vision. I very much agree.
But anyway, to the point where I'm standing on the pedestrian crossing, She's driving through it with her windows down, and I'm talking to her.
Through the window, like what the fuck are you doing?
And she just looked at me, but it still didn't register that she'd done something wrong.
She's just happy.
You like, don't get your eyes off the road, keep driving, I keep looking forward. Well, I'm glad you made it. Finally died while I was on holiday.
Too, Stop being a storytop I what happened to you?
Oh, I've nearly got eaten by a shark.
There we go, So glad you made it. It's one of those sharks.
It has no teeth, like it nearly sucked me to death.
It wouldn't be a bad way to go. It could be worse.
Brittany has a new fetish and it's being sucked off by a gummy shark in the mountains too far.
Yeah.
When you guys said was it romantic?
Boy? Was it romantic? Ben was like, Hey, what's gone on down there.
I want a piece of that, all right, Okay. We spoke about this on Tuesday's episode. Normally on Thursdays we.
Get sidetracked, We talk about lots of other things before we get to unpacking your questions. And we had been receiving some feedback last year that maybe we should focus on answering more questions rather than talking about ourselves for so long, So we're going to take that on board. We have extra questions on today's episode, so this is
going to be like a media ask gun cut. But also because we've been on holidays for the past four weeks, we have received so many questions and like I'm talking hundreds of questions, so to anyone who sent them in, like, thank you so much.
We're doing our best to get through all of them.
And I feel like today like we've got such a good mix because they're so different and they're so varied.
We have some pretty hectic, devisive ones today as well, don't we.
We already had like a little bit of a fight beforehand, because we did.
It was not a fight, but it was just a fight.
Sometimes Laura and I go very different paths to get somewhere, and sometimes just like some wrestling and jiu jitsu along the way. But usually we get to like we get to the endpoint. But it's how different brains work and how different thought processes work. I think it's also healthy to have disagreements sometimes.
Also, I do think that we are both, in our own ways quite stubborn, So when we don't agree with each other, we fight harder to like get our point across in order for the other person to understand why we feel the way that we feel.
Yeah, I'm like, I'm hearing you and I feel you, Laura, but you're wrong.
That's pretty much how it goes down. No, we're joking.
But before we get into answering your questions, we are still doing our vibes and unsubscribes of the Week produce a.
Keisha Welcome, Welcome back.
We do have a little life update from producer Keisha. Produce Kisha, would you like to talk to us about you take her the next step?
I love that. I said to you, guys, we had a planning meeting last week before you know, we came back to work for the year, and I was like, guys, I have one life update, and both of you were like, what is it, and I was like, well, I'm not going to tell you because I want to tell you on the podcast, and then both of you are like, fucking know what it is.
The jig is up. The gig is up.
So for the course of the last ten months, it has been a bit of a running joke on the podcast that my boyfriend Toblerone, who we call toablerone, because unlike.
Us, he's a very private He's a very private person, can't relate. None of us were all over share.
Is you know what I think is so interesting about this, Like Toblarone is very private, but Keisha has no issue with sharing all of his things on the podcast. She just does it with him under the guise of the name Toblerone.
Yeah, but then she tags him on Instagram. It doesn't make any sense to me either. She's like, what ever, I don't understand.
I don't understand why there is a difference between social media and the podcast, but it is what he has requested. And I kind of go, well, I don't really get to make you know, I don't get to make those decisions. You've told me what you're okay with, and I've just gott to play on so we have finally dropped the album, finally.
Said I love you.
Okay, Well, okay, so we did speak about this on the podcast because you know, we're all about feminism, and but the reason that I had felt it for so long and then I didn't say it to him and I was waiting for him to say it to me. I guess, if I'm being completely honest, like there would have been a percentage of ego involved in it, but it wasn't entirely ego based. It was more so that I'm a very expressive person. I'm a words of affirmation girlie,
and I just know that he's not like that. I know that he's slower to get to the point at which he would be comfortable, and so no part of me wanted to make him feel as though I was like pressuring him into it or rushing him into it. And I also felt like if I were to say it, even though I wholeheartedly meant it and he wasn't at the point where he was ready to say it yet, I feel like it could have changed this dynamic in our relationship, and I just I didn't want that to be the case.
So I waited. But when it actually happened.
Brittany, I have an absolute bone to pick without shared child Delilah.
Because she nearly nearly nearly ruined it.
So we were spending Christmas apart because he's not from him, and so we had this kind of like pre Christmas dinner booked and it was meant to be this really beautiful thing, and so I had Delilah with me because you're over in Scotland. For a couple of days leading up to it, it had just been absolutely pouring down with rain, and if you have an active dog, you know how detrimental that is to your well being because you can't take them out for runs and wear them out.
So this day it was just pouring down with more and more rain, and I was like, look, I'm just gonna take her to the beach. We're gonna go for a run. We're gonna get wet. Like I've just accepted, we're both gonna be drowned. Rats, I'm gonna come home. We gonna wash her. It'll be fine. Da Lala and I go to the beach. We're running up and down the beach. She's having the best time of her life.
We're about to get back to the car and I'm about to drive home, and she looked at me and she made eye contact.
Oh, she really gosh, and she was like, I'm gonna fuck your life. She's like, what can I do to make your life hell?
She took off. She found a bunch of dead birds.
She was rolling around in these things, trying to cover every orifice of her body in dead bird scent. I eventually got to her. So she's now soaking wet. I'm soaking wet. She's in dead wet bird and I have to get her back into the car. I get back to Tablaren's house. I'm washing her head to doe. She's hating life. I blow dried her at home, and by the time I got back, I was like, you know,
I just actually can't be bothered. I cannot be bothered to do this nice dinner, Like my energy is completely gone.
So we ended up getting.
Takeaway and we had this really boring dinner at home. I was in the filthiest mood you could ever imagine, and he turns to me and he's like, I love you, sweetheart. It just came out of absolutely nowhere in my mind, Like I was just something that I hadn't expected.
What was that? Was it?
It was like, because he had been planning on doing this really nice Christmas dinner, you know. He said that he'd been thinking about it for quite a while and that he wanted it to be this really nice special moment, but.
It wasn't act the way you said it. I guess it's time. Ah, I love you, sweetie.
I think it was because of how bad my mood was, Like I was just so pissed off at the.
Well, it was it a proper love declaration or it's almost sounding a bit like it was looking at you like a bit sympathetic, like you're in the bad moting I love you, okay, you know, like you know.
How's a different tone? Has he said it more than once since? Yes? Yes, blood, so bloodgates are open.
Yeah.
I turned him and I was like, I've been waiting a long time to say that to you, and he's like, look, I have as well. But I wanted it to be a nice moment, and I just kind of resorted to the fact that that wasn't going to happen tonight as I had initially planned. But yes, to summarize, we have now said I love you. We've also now moved in together. Things happen in a weird order in our.
Relations an hour, doesn't it crawling.
To the line, or it's the fastest thing you've ever experienced. So that is my life update. And thank you to all of the very beautiful people who have messaged me throughout the course of the last ten months telling me how long it took for your partner to tell you that they love you, because I felt that I really felt supported by all of your messages.
In a de validation.
Well, guys, let's get into vibes and unsubscribes the week, because I have an unsubscribed this week, which is controversial, but I have strong feelings about it.
Keisha, what is your vibe?
Well, my vibe for this week comes off of the back of you, guys speaking with Mark Manson. So I've started listening to his podcast and there's someone who joins him on his podcast a lot, and that guy's.
Name is Drew Bernie.
Now, Drew used to be a behavioral neuroscientist and he now calls himself a content nerd for Mark Manson. So he's worked for Mark since twenty fourteen. They have a really close relationship and so much of what he was saying on the podcast, I was like, Wow, this guy
has like an amazing amount of insight. I find everything he says really interesting and quite nuanced, Like he often has a different perspective to what I naturally would have thought, similar to Mark though, you know, like he tells it how it is, but it's not always what you think
you're gonna hear. Drew actually has a newsletter of his own and it is called Traction, and the latest one that he dropped was titled do it your damn self, And there was this part of it and he said, going through the struggle is where the rewards lie, not just the money and the recognition, but the feeling you get when you see something come together that you did
your damn self. So it's about that satisfaction you get out of something when you really feel like you've earned it, and how you can sit in that joy of it for so much longer when.
You truly feel like not so much that.
You've earned it, I guess, but that you've done so much in order to put yourself in that position.
Well, I guess it's this idea right of when you have done it your damn self. It broadens your perception around what you're able to achieve. You're like, oh, okay, I didn't think I could do that thing. Whether it mean I mean for some people, it could be something stupid, like installing a mirror. That's my next DIY project is I'm going to install this mirror in my house.
I know that's where my brain went to.
But like you know me, four years ago, if you'd said, Laura, you need to drill a hole and do X y Z, I would have been like, Ah, that's outside of my remit. But I think anytime you expose yourself to doing something that you've never done before that was a little bit challenging, you learn a new skill. You can then sit in the reward of being like, ah, okay, I'm really confident in the fact that I can do things I didn't know how to do, and I can do things I thought were hard.
Yeah. Absolutely. So that's what this particular newsletter was about.
I know that we all love Mark Manson's newsletter, and so Drew has one of his own. I'll link it in the show notes for you. It is called Traction, and I really think that you guys will enjoy it.
Okay, Well, my vibe is you guys know, I'm a true crime junkie. I'm sick for it. So there's a Netflix documentary. It's a docuseries three parts that's going bonkers at the moment. It's called American Nightmare. So it's a true story about a couple named Denise and Aaron. I won't go too much into it, but they're dubbed the real life Gone Girl. So you remember the movie Gone Girl that went viral. Basically, she is kidnapped from her home one night and completely gone missing in the most
unusual of ways. Like the kidnapping is something that feels like it should be a made up story. All eyes go on to the boyfriend, Aaron. He swears to God that he had nothing to do with it, and then it goes into depth about the police investigation and where things went wrong and what really happened. And I don't want to tell you too much because I don't want
to spoil it because I hate a spoiler. But I was hooked the entire three episodes and at the end, I was just left furious, Like I was absolutely furious at the police department in America.
I've seen the first episode of this and I know producer Keisha's also watched quite a bit of it. It is brilliant and I think the thing that is like what you touched on, Bret, but it's the malpractice of the police, and it's this idea that people are coming forward with their story and that they're not being believed by the police because they have an agenda around it.
And the docuseries is actually them telling their story, so it's not like it's from a narration from someone else telling a story.
It's them.
It is her sitting in what happened and reliving it. They have footage from the investigations and from the interviews and the interrogations, and it's truly one of the better true crime docuseries I've watched very long time.
Do you know what I really love about it, and this is a little bit more from like a societal lens, is that I think we are seeing so much more content now that is this pushback to the whole believe victims. You know, I know it's something that we really have humongous issues with here in Australia and this is an American version of it, But for so long victims have not been believed and I think it's also a very interesting insight into the policing of police. We haven't had
access to that for very long, you know. I think it's really this introduction of social media and entertainment companies like Netflix that have taken the power back. If it weren't forth social media or Netflix shining a light on situations like this, I wonder how long we would have gone on with these corrupt systems and also victims spending so long not being believed and not being you know, the air investigations not being taken seriously.
So yeah, it's the visibility, right because back in the day, the only way that you would ever get your story out, Like I remember, like if something happen and someone was angry about something, it was like you write into the paper, or you write into the morning show or something to try and get.
Your story out.
That.
The only other thing which I think is important to note is that it kind of ties into this idea that when you're not a perfect victim, which we know that in cases of domestic violence, in cases of sexual assault, it is very rare that there is a perfect victim. What this kind of unpacks is that when you are an imperfect victim. When you've done things that maybe the police see as being not exactly how you should or shouldn't have behaved, the likelihood of being believed is even lower.
It's truly wild, and it's one of those things that you have to see to believe.
We'll link that in show notes. And that is on Netflix, the one that I went.
And I'm going to keep this short and snappy because I feel like some people are going to agree and some people are going to deeply, deeply disagree.
My unsubscribed for the week is Saltburn.
I have watched it and I don't really care for it, and I think the grave scene and the bath scene just too weird for me. But second to that, I felt as though the chemistry between the two main actors being best friends. I didn't think that the chemistry was believable. And I say this because the main actor, Jacob Elordi, he is this beautiful, successful, He is the most popular kid at university. He is ridiculously wealthy, like it goes into kind of his family and and how insanely wealthy
his family is. And he befriends the most socially awkward, is really hard to connect with, and I just didn't believe that the chemistry between them, and I think it's because they were trying to establish that they had this like deep friendship, but all the establishment of the deep friendship was done through weird movie montage flashbacks. But when it comes to the dialogue between the two characters, there was nothing convincing about it at all.
I completely disagree with you. I don't think that was the plot at all. I think what they were trying to lead you to believe is you're made to feel that someone is going to die right like you know, but you don't know who. You don't know who is going to turn and be the killer or the baddie
in this. My guess was that he was there, this nerdy guy, and was going to result in a hunt, like they were going to release him on the grounds and everyone got to track him down and hunt him to kill him because he's a nobody with no family. That was what I was led to believe, and that's what I picked up from the show. So I think that you and I have picked up two very different things. I'd love to know what everyone else's opinion was as they were watching it.
Yeah, see the reason why I find that so interesting is because I thought it was really obvious what was happening. I know it's being like one of the most viral and widely watched movies at the moment, and it's been very, very loved.
I did not love it.
I kind of got to the end of it and I was like, that was weird, and I want my Aaron halfback.
Now. I wish I'd watch something else. I haven't watched it yet, but I've just heard that it's sick. I've just heard that it's weird.
You have to be careful who you watch it with because that can get awkward.
Just don't watch it with your mum or your dad, and then don't go and have a bar afterwards.
Okay, all right, let's get into the question.
Question number one. I have a beautiful friend. She's married and in a same sex relationship. She has one toddler and is pregnant with her second baby. Both of them share the same biological father, a sperm donor. I recently became good friends with a different mum friend through my husband, and her baby is also the product of a sperm donation due to her husband's fertility issues. All of that
is amazing and I am so happy for everyone. But the kicker is that the two children of my two different mum friends look identical.
I'm talking eerily similar.
Both are pretty vocal and upfront about their IVF and sperm donation stories, and the donor information they have shared with me so far is crazy similar. I won't go into too much detail for you, but essentially the donor is the same nationality, the same height, the same age, the same hair color, eye color choices, etc.
Do I bring it up with either of them?
It seems entirely possible, but I don't really know what to do because the kids look so alike.
Oh, we have never had a question like this.
We have never had a question like this.
Well, this is the one that Britta and I gott into a bit of a not an argument, but a heated disagreement about.
So it doesn't either.
We just disagreed.
It wasn't any You make your sound like we had each other's throat. Okay. So I have a girlfriend. Her name is Jess.
She's recently had a baby with her partner Vanessa, two of my closest friends.
They've gone through and.
Chose to have a known sperm donor and so I called Jess because I was like, this is a conversation which I mean, we can give our opinions on, but we're not living this, and I think it's very easy when you're on the other side of it to go like should.
I have this conversation with them? Shouldn't I?
And not to say that my friend speaks for any same sex couple or anybody who has gone through the donor process, but I do think that she had some very important points to make, and so I wanted to play her response for you.
I don't really see the point of bringing it up with either of them, Like both of them are obviously in complete family units, Like the straight couple is obviously a complete family unit.
The same sex couple of the complete family unit.
I think for a lot of people, the.
Reason that they go with anonymous sperm donors rather than known jonas is because they're not interested in having an extra third party in their lives, and so the fact that they have a sperm donor becomes pretty inconsequential. It's not something that they think about, it's not something that comes up day to day. So I guess this reminder both for the gay couple and the straight couple that they were unable to start their family on their own.
It's unnecessary and potentially even a little bit painful. It's really hard to say, and obviously it depends on the couple, but I'd say they probably don't really need or want this sharing of information, not to mention the fact that they probably don't even know the name the question of knowing the name of the sperm donner. When you go through a sperm mic, you actually don't even get their name or photo.
You just get a baby photo.
And medical history. That's it.
So unless they can match up the baby photo and see if they have the same one, it's potentially just going to leave a bunch of unanswered questions anyway. So I mean, yeah, depending on the friendship, it might be worth bringing out.
But I just don't really see the point.
One thing I wanted to flag before we get into fully unpacking this and like getting your opinion, Breed or like how we would navigate this if we were in the situation is that in the question it says biological father, right,
the biological father in reference to sperm donor. Now, one thing that Jess mentioned after we had this conversation and I think it's so important because it can be so easy to say the wrong thing without meaning to say the wrong thing without meaning no offense, because clearly the question wasn't written with any offense in mind. But I guess it's that whole adage that once you know better,
you do better. If you're going to talk about someone's donor sperm, don't talk about it in relation to being a biological father or a dad. Just remove father dad from any type of dialogue that you have around this, because that's not what they are. They made a sperm donation and those two things are completely separate, and that can be really invalidating to any family who has been through the process of sperm donation or egg donation as well.
That's a really good point for you to bring up, Laura, and for Jess to have brought up, because when we were talking about this, I was also referring it to as like, you know, well, biological father, sperm donor.
I was putting them.
Together without even thinking that that could be offensive or not the right thing to say. But I totally understand why it is, because we know what a father is and should be, and at the end of the day, they did do a sperm donation, and then that was their relationship finished, like there is no relationship, which I think is really important to know. It's such a tricky situation because she's saying that she has two good friends,
two very good friends that she sees often. I mean, if she's written this in she genuinely thinks they could be from the same donor. I guess the question she's facing is will it be offensive or bring up something or be hurtful? B what if they're in a situation where they would want to know if their child has a genetic relation.
Out there this donor.
Obviously it would be like a half relation. Would you want to know? And I guess that's the way. The best way to do it is throw it in as that hypothetical, like well crazy, is that crazy?
Like would you want to know?
Is that?
You know?
That's what I would do.
Feel it out and you're going to get the vibe from whatever they say. They're either going to be like, oh hell no, like could you imagine the hassle? Or they're going to be like, well, yeah, maybe if they've got some sort of biological connection out there, that could be cool, Like I think you just got to feel it out.
I completely agree, and I know that it's one of those things where one person's perspective and opinion doesn't cover everybody's experiences. And everybody who has gone through the process of having a donor to have a baby is going to feel differently around their own family, their own unit, their own experience, how they're raising their children, what participation that donor has in that child's life, whether it's absolutely nothing at all, or whether they're an active potentially uncle
figure or auntie figure or whatever like. There's so many variations of how this could present, and so I think to give one wash answer of saying this is the right or wrong way would not be a just way.
To approach this question.
The only thing I do want to reiterate is what good would come of it? What is going to be the main benefit, especially when the things that you're going off the indicating factors are pretty broad and open ideas.
They're like height, nationality, the eye color. Let's say, okay, maybe if it was a very unique and rare height, nationality, and eye color, but if it's a forty year old Caucasian man who is six foot with green eyes or blue eyes or whatever, I would say that there's probably a lot of them out there who have doned sperm
over the many years. The other thing as well to keep in mind, and this is I find this so interesting around like the rules and regulations within Australia and sperm donation is that for men who are doing sperm donation, they can only donate to up to ten families, so they're only allowed to create and contribute to ten separate families.
And that's also to like minimize any crossover. Like imagine growing up and being a child who is from a donor and then meeting another child who is from a donor, and then it turns out that you've all got the same donor parent, which has happened in the States, and that's wild. So in Australia there's so many more legislations and rules around how many donor families can be created, and the reason for that is to try and minimize
this type of thing. Ultimately, unless you can kind of say, well, this is going to be of benefit to everyone in the picture, it's going to be of benefit to the parents because the children are too young to do anything with that information. Yet, then I don't think that you should be the donor vigilante and take it upon yourself to make sure that everyone knows all the information, because sometimes people going into this decision simply don't want to know the information.
Interesting.
Also, I would love to know if this goes ahead and you have this conversation, please come back and tell us what the outcome of this is, because we need to know.
I know what to do.
What invite them both to like a barbecue or a party or something and let them work it out for themselves. That look like your kid looks bad like I like it.
That is fucking cruel. Do not do that. That is a terrible, terrible ideage. This just happened spontaneously. Don't take that advice. Question number two.
I've been with my partner for nearly five years. It's been a super stable relationship and he's someone that I can talk openly with about anything. However, I have begun to realize that we are super different in many ways. He's really introverted and runs out of social battery fast. He prefers staying at home and gaming with friends, whereas
I love camping, going on road trips, adventures, traveling. We've tried some of these activities together and it uses up his energy pretty quick, or it just ends with him in a migraine from the sun and he hates it. I don't like gaming. It worries me that our differences will get the better of us long term. But I still really like him for milestones such as birthdays and anniversaries. He isn't very good at planning anything or getting any gifts and says that he has no time. I shared
interest really important in relationships. What would you do in this situation? How do I know RA right relationship?
I don't know.
I think that there's two ways to answer this, because it's only an issue if it's an issue to you, right, Like, you can date someone who is completely different to you, who has really different interests, who loves gaming, and if gaming's not an issue to you, and you guys are able to connect in other ways and you get your cup filled, like just say you love going campaign or you love road trips, whatever it is, and you do that with your girlfriends, and you fill your cup with
your girlfriends and then your boyfriend provides x YZ to you different things, that's fine.
But if it's becoming.
An issue, if you've gotten to a place where you think that the differences are too big, that you're not able to connect on anything, because you know, it may not just be the fact that he's introverted. It sounds like it's the fact that he's not investing enough time or consideration or thought into you. So when you say, like, oh, he's he's introverted, but then he's also really bad at this thing and this thing and this thing, you kind
of haven't told me anything that he's good at. You haven't told me anything that the two of you have together that's a redeemable part of your relationship. And so I would say to you before you make a decision that you can't be together or that like the differences are too great, I would have a think about, Okay, well, what are the amazing things that he brings to the relationship, What are the things that I love about him? What are the things that we share together that are incredible
that are worth valuing? And are there more of those things than what there are negatives? And can you then therefore overcome the things and the differences that you have. That would be my very first thing to say to do.
Okay, I'm gonna come in and say I'm not vibing this relationship, and the reason that is fucking half ritch.
The reason now stick with me.
The reason I say that is because I actually do think that you do have to have some commonality and enjoy the same kinds of hobbies. I think you do have to have that connection because relationships change with age and what period you are in your life. And what I mean by that is, yes, you can fill your cup in other ways with girlfriends, like you can go camping with girlfriends because you love it and your partner doesn't want to, But that only works for so long.
That only works when you're young. You're a bit more carefree, you got the time, you don't have kids, you're not married, you're not in a job that is so stressful and hectic. When you go into that second transition of life, it's different. You don't have the time that you used to and you need to have that connection with your partner. I truly believe that you need to enjoy doing things together.
It doesn't have to be everything. Obviously you were still going to have friendships outside of him, but I do think it's important that you find some commonality. Is he bringing what you need in other capacities?
Which he's not.
Like you have said, he doesn't even plan anniversaries or gets you gifts because he has no time. That is a pretty lay mass excuse to me. Like, everyone has time to make someone in their life that they love feel special. It's like when someone says I've got no time to respond to a text. Bullshit. Everyone has time. If you want to do something, you can do something. If you want to make your loved one feel loved, it could be a note that you've left on the
table for them. There are ways to connect and make somebody feel special in love that don't take a lot of time, don't take a lot of effort, don't take a lot of money.
Well, what it is right when someone says I don't have the time, what they actually mean is is that you're not the top of the priority list because time is reflective of priorities. If someone has the time to do something whatever X, y Z is, that is because that is their priority, and we find ways in order to move things that are important to us back up
to the top of the list. So like, don't get me wrong, like, there will be times in life in relationships, ebbs and flows where your relationship can't always be the priority, and that might be because work is really pressing or there is something else that requires more of your energy.
But even in saying that, that.
Can't be the constant because if it is the constant all the time, and it's something we covered with Mark Manson on Tuesday's episode, what that means is is that if it's the constant all the time, it's not necessarily then the priority. Because I do kind of agree with you, Britt, but I guess I don't want to make like big, grand sweeping statements about their relationship without having more context, because I think that there's a lot of negatives in
here without adding in the positives. And sometimes we can be very negatively geared about something we can focus on, Okay, well they didn't do this, they didn't do this, they didn't do this, but we don't actually look at, well, what did they do to satisfy other areas and other things that are important to me. The only thing I want to say, kind of like to sum this up,
gaming has a real negative connotation. I think for anyone who's not a gamer, when you hear the word gaming, you instantly think like, ugh, like that's so isolating, You're not putting any time into our relationship because you're out there doing this thing in a silo, which seems really antisocial.
And I guess over the years, especially.
Because I have people in my life who game and who are really into it, I also kind of understand that for people who are introverted, who are really into that world, it's not necessarily as antisocial as what one might think. It can be a way of deregulating for someone who's introverted, although they may have friends online who
they play against. So in the same way that you might go out and go to the pub, or you might go out and hang out with your friends, that might be his version of hanging out with his friends. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a negative thing. It's only a negative thing if it's impacting your relationship because he's prioritizing it over spending time together.
No, to be clear, I'm not telling anyone to put any relationship in the bin, Like, no one's gone in the bin. Yeah we have before, but this is not it, And there is nothing wrong with gaming. These are separate issues, like, that's not what the issue here is. The issue here is that there's just no connection now I'm not saying in the relationship, but you do need to go through a bit of a process first. I think there is
no reason you can't sit down and communicate. Firstly, let's break it down, let's do the you don't feel the affection, you don't feel the attention and the love, sit down and say that, say like, you know, I don't care that you game. That doesn't bother me. But if I'm not getting what I need from any other aspect, it's really starting to affect me.
And you know, when it's that anniversary of our birthday.
I don't need big presence, I don't need big gifts, but I don't feel like I don't feel like I'm important. And I think you can have that conversation. The problem in the relationships only start to intensify when you've had those conversations and there's no change, so you don't immediately. People aren't mind readers.
If you're not.
Communicating, they're not gotta know. The next thing I wanted to say is write down, print out like a humongous list of activities that you could do, different sports, different hobbies, and might be pup puck, golf, whatever he might love going to an arcade and you might find that you enjoy that as well. Write down a huge list, start to go through it together until you find something that
you both enjoy. And if you go through a mega list and there is not one thing that you guys can connect on and he's still not putting it in the effort, then yeah, put him in the bin.
In the bin, sorry, sweetheart. You need to get in the bin. Now. That's it, that's our relationship. Get in the ball. Life on Cut said so.
Question number three. I go to a prestigious university and everyone there is well off and always very posh and well dressed. Think Rolex Cartier, Louis Baton and the works. I've had to fake it till I make it my whole way through trying to fit in. I am often embarrassed in public by my family. Their polar opposite to me and a very loud and obnoxious, very aussy if
you know what I mean. I'm a very self conscious person and it'll ruin my day if I think someone is judging me, and I'm scared that this will happen. I don't want to offend them and I love them, but is it okay for me to ask them to act differently and tone it down for my sake. Any help is appreciated.
I feel really sorry for you.
And the reason why I say I feel sorry for you is not because of the people that your family is. It's because of how insecure you must be as a person that you feel as though you need to change the people around you. Because the thing is, every single person, everyone has someone in their family who's fucking a bit wild and a bit odd, do you know what I mean?
But they're not a reflection of who you are as a person necessarily, And there's nothing that you've said about your parents or your family that makes me go, oh, they're a bad person, that's why you'd want them to change. Or they're humiliating, that's why you'd want them to change. They say things that are racist or inappropriate. I would
understand if that was the premise of it. But if it's just because they're loud and they're vibrant, and they're a bit crazy and cut from a slightly different cloth to the people that you spend time with at university, I would say that that is inherently, deeply judgmental, and I would be prioritizing my family over people who come from labels and brands and care about things that are extremely superficial in.
The long run.
So I think that the place where you need to start is on yourself and is on your self worth, and is on your self identity, and it is on your values and figuring out what is the most important thing to you in life. And if the most important thing to you in life is fitting in, then this.
Will always be a problem for you.
One hundred percent. This makes me upset to think about this family, and that's again we're making the assumption that they're not homophobic, they're not racist, they're not out total no pick it in the streets. If they're just a bit of a rough, fossy bogan kind of family that don't walk around in rolelexes and Cartier spoiler, one percent of people walk around in rolelex and cartier Like that is not a common thing.
It's also not relatable, like who fucking cares?
And also the feeling that you have to fake it until you make it to fit in. Like I know that that's a separate conversation here, because one side of this is about your family embarrassing you, and the second side is faking it. To you make it because everyone else is wearing all this stuff that is saying more about you than anyone else in this situation. You do not need fancy things to impress people, and you do not need fancy things to win friends.
I think this also is an age thing, and I don't want to sound age just when I say this, but you're at university and I know that they are very impressionable years where everyone wants to fit in, like everyone wants to have the friendship group and have those strong connections with their friends. The reason why I say I think that this is also age related is because I think when I was young, I probably felt a
little bit the same. And I don't say that I ever wanted my family to change or anything, but I sometimes felt like I needed to prepare my friends for like how different my dad is Terry Brn or how my mom can say one line is which I would have been like, oh my god, how embarrassing, like please mum stop talking. And I felt, probably when I was younger, that I needed to prepare people a little bit for
the uniqueness of my family. But like now, as someone who's thirty seven, who has my own kids, I don't fucking care anymore. Like, my parents are so different and we've kind of navigated the ebbs and flows of our relationship.
I'm so proud of the people that they are.
And if anybody ever kind of looked at them and judged them for not being as polished or the version of what they would expect, I think that that says so much about the other person. And I would never want someone in my life who judges my family. And I guess for me, this probably wasn't so much around friends,
but it was around boyfriends. I remember having feelings of like, oh, will my boyfriends like my family, and will I need to kind of give them a bit of a heads up around like, you know, the ways in which my dad communicates or the way in which my mum communicates, and kind of give them the backstory in order for them to not feel judgmental. Now, when I think of that, like,
that's fucking crazy. And I guess it's because the people who you have in your life, like your family, your parents, your siblings, they are their own people and they are not a direct reflection of who you are as a person.
And I really do think I mean, maybe it's a case of and I don't want to say speaking to a therapist because maybe that feels a bit much, but like doing a bit of inner work, like reading up on sort of like your own values and understanding what's important to you as a person, figuring out are these the type of people that you want in your life
as your lifelong friends. If you feel like you're always playing a game where you have to play up being someone different to who you actually are, is that not gonna then just breed more insecurity in you as a person.
All right, bring us home, Laura.
All right, last question, and I find this one a tricky one, being a mum myself who also sometimes gives their kid too much screen time.
All Right.
One of my closest friends has an almost one year old baby. Her partner and her are the type of people who love having the TV on in the background at their house most of the day. Think music videos or sport. It's kind of just background noise for them. I've noticed that since having their bub they have continued to do this. I don't think that the baby is getting direct screen time, but I would say they're getting
a significant amount of indirect screen time. For example, my friend has commented to me before how much the baby loves watching TV, and in video she shares of the baby, the TV is always on in the background. Now, I don't think my friend is aware that screen time is not recommended for children under two. I also didn't know that, so my kids are also fucked. My question is should I bring Should I bring the screen time National Guidelines to my friend's attention, and if so, how should I
do this in a kind and non judgmental way. I absolutely know my friend would never intentionally do anything detrimental to the health and wellbeing of her baby. But I also know that if I was doing something unknowingly that might impact my child's wellbeing, I would want to be informed.
I picture of walking in with like one hundred and twenty eight page document that's tied by string. When she slaps it down on the table, She's like, he's the National TV Guidelines. That is so funny. I don't think you can bring the National Guidelines to her. I really don't, even though you're a good, caring friend. And I also find this to be a tricky place. Now, I don't feel like I can comment that heavily because I don't
have kids. So Laura, I definitely want your opinion on this being a mum, but I don't think it's your place to parent another person's children. And I could be getting this wrong, right. I haven't done the research into just how detrimental it is for a child underto to watch screen time, Like what is it actually doing? You know,
is it giving them brain cancer? Because there's a difference with Hey, I feel like I've been seeing you leave your child out in the sun a lot with no sunscreen on, so I just feel like that's not the right thing to do. Yes, I would be saying that for sure. If your friends lett the kid burn all the time in the sun, that's different to some background TV. So I feel like it's one of those picky battle things.
I don't know, I could be wrong.
What do you reckon?
I don't feel like I can comment because I have two children and they have watched and do watch TV, and the TV's on in our house and sometimes it's background TV, and sometimes we just have the TV on with music playing because Spotify plays through our TV. Look, I think that there are lots of ways that you can fuck your kids up, and a bit of extra screen time is probably not gonna do deep fundamental damage.
Now, look, if you want to know.
The Australian regulations on screen time, it's that children under eighteen months shouldn't have any screen time at all. They should not see a TV, which is great, don't let them watch burn. Yeah, looks it's also apparently inappropriate to learn that one the hard way. I think that that is it's great in theory for a lot of parents,
it's unachievable. And keeping complete screen time away from your kids from under eighteen months and I'm talking like you might be breastfeeding and be on your phone, you might be doing something and the TV's on in the background. Like for majority of Australian households, that's pretty hard to manage. Does it mean that like you're setting your kid up and they're watching four hours.
Of cocoa melon. That's a whole different thing.
If that's what she was doing, then yeah, I would maybe say like, oh, how do you feel about screen time?
Like you know, like du I noticed you don't care.
But the thing is is there are very few moms and dads out there, unless they have been living in a literal hole, who don't know that screen time is a controversial topic, right everyone knows it. Everyone knows that, you know, putting a kid in front of a tablet or like, you know, having them watch a phone or a TV is not necessarily a good thing to do. I think TVs are better than say iPhones or YouTube, which are very quick moving you can change the content continuously.
It's a different thing having free to air playing in the background or having like Spotify music playing in the background verse cropping your kid up and putting you know, like I said, four hours a Coco Melanon. But I also think moms get shamed for fucking everything. Like it is hard being a mum, It is hard finding time for yourself. It is hard keeping kids entertained distracted whilst you're potentially also juggling work, juggling everything else in your life.
And so I think for some people it is something that is used and lent on because it is an easier way of managing. And so I would say that she's probably aware of it. I would say she probably knows that it's not the best thing to do, and all you bringing it up is going to make her feel super judged. It's probably not impacting, especially if it's ambient TV in a way that you seem to be as concerned about because there's so many worse ways to parent than a bit of screen time.
I think, yeah, totally.
And I just tried to imagine because I always try and put myself in that situation, but I tried to imagine if I came to your house one day, Laura and brought that up to you, if the girl's watching TV, and I was like, hey, do you think that the girl's been watching a bit too much TV? Like, I don't know, if you know it's really bad for them, would not go down well. And I know that, and we are very close. I just know that you feel like, well, you fucking take them. Then what do you want me
to do? Like, I think that this you know I said earlier, piky battle. I don't think this is your battle.
I know that there will be some mums who will be listening to this and they will think, well, that's a shit way of parenting. You shouldn't have your kids watching screen times. And I get it. I get it. You are a better mum than me. That's okay. In the competition of who's the best mum, you can be better than me. And I know it comes back down to that idea of priorities, blah fucking blah blah blah. But there are some times where I have to get x YZ done and having the TV on enables me
and allows me to do that. And I think, so long as you're using it in a mediated way alongside craft activities, going to the park, giving your kid other ways of being stimulated, and you're supervising the stuff that they're watching, I just don't see how bad it's gonna be, do you know what I mean? Like, what's the trade off? Also, I think about me growing up, like, well, yes, we didn't have tablets.
My mom didn't give a fuck about screen time.
That TV was on from the second we woke up until the second we went to bed. I'm talking all day every day. She never stopped me from I was watching South Park when I was seven, Like, I'm fine, guys, everything is fine. My mum was a single mum of three kids. That's why the TV was on all the time. She couldn't manage. She wasn't managing, and so like it was a way of keeping people occupied, knowing that they're in a certain room that they needed them to be in, and it.
Just you worked out like relatively fine, semi okay so far, like you're like a solid five out of hand, like.
Room for improvement, but that's always a good place to be.
I like to think of myself things turned out better than they could and that's always a positive.
That's a positive anyway, guys. I hope that's a takeaway for you all today.
Also, let us know what you think if you disagree with anything that we've said, if you would approach it differently, And I think especially the screen time one, I'd be so interested to know from other moms how you feel about it or what you would want from your friends, especially when we laughed, but especially when it does come from a well meaning to place, what you would like.
That is if from us.
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